What I Bought 8/17/2018 - Part 2

I'll be out of town all next week, but I'm going to try and have posts ready to go. But in case you comment and I don't comment back, you know why. Or I didn't think I had a good reply.

Coda #4, by Si Spurrier (writer), Matias Bergara (artist), Michael Doig (color assists), Jim Campbell (letterer) - I wound up with the Michael Allred variant, because it was the only copy the store had. Too bad, I really liked Bergara's cover.

The bard explains why the Urken were helping the Whitlords destroy the world, and how disillusionment with how it turned out feeds into Serka's heroic deeds. Since the giant will be passing by Ridgetown in a month, she's determined to deal with it, permanently. She's even more determined when she and Hm visit Murkrone, who lets slip there's a Whitlord (or someone posing as one) controlling the giant. We get a glimpse of her other side, the one the bard is determined to erase. It is impressively terrifying, excellent work by Bergara on that design. A lot of shadow involved, but with enough detail to let your mind do the rest. Of course, even if he succeeds, I'm sure there would be dire consequences, and I'm positive he hasn't bothered to discuss this cockamamie plan with Serka.

So, wheels turning. it's an interesting relationship between the two of them. The street urchin thinks the bard prefers when Serka is away, because then he can just have his "quest" to rescue her. Yet he certainly seems to work hard to keep her around him, and to avoid doing anything that might set her off and send her back into the desert. He insists Serka is the best person he knows, and one who could truly save the world if this "Red Rage" wasn't holding her back. Despite his misgivings about her trying the Angel strategy of atonement through ridiculous acts of heroism, he still points out threats for her to face as they travel. So he does somewhat support her attempts to do go, even as he plays the little devil on her shoulder trying to keep her from getting entangled in these other peoples' lives. So perhaps the little girl was correct, he does struggle with complications, and that's why he wants it to just be the two of them, roaming the world, righting wrongs. At some point we'll need to see Serka's perspective on it. Whatever form it takes, all we have so far is the bard's view. As I typed all that out, it doesn't seem like a great relationship. Not enough honest communication, he thinks she needs "fixing", he seems at least a little terrified of what happens if she gets pissed off enough.

For the opening few pages, as the bard gets poetic with the story, Bergara and Doig opt for a more limited color range. Mostly black and white, a little red for emphasis here and there, and some gray or almost sepia tone to break up the black in places. It's a sharp break from the pleasant shades of pink and other warm colors that mark most of the book. It's actually a little surprisingly how generally cheerful the colors are in a book set in a post-apocalypse world. It's a bit of fantasy, or marking the last vestiges of the old world. Bergara uses shadows well to darken things just a bit where he needs to, mostly with Hm, who is working on his schemes constantly.